Chamby

Same here, Jesse. You can’t send solvent-based paint tinlets via the postal service, but courier services will happily deliver them... ditto with spray cans.

I have used a similar approach, with a taller piece of foam and the top trimmed to shape using scissors. Other finely graded coal suppliers are the excellent Atwood Aggregates (who paused trading during lockdown), and Hattons now have their own range of loose wagon loads: I used their coal recently which is also very effective.

Agreed... some weight in the wagon helps, I add 10-15g to all my Dapol wagons.

It varies. I have seen bolts, pieces of angled steel clamped over the bottom timber strut in different boxes. There is often a heavy frame supporting the interlocking mechanism that will also play a role in supporting the floor above, so it’s not just a matter of a timber frame sitting on brick walls. I am sure that the GWR will have had a standardised method of construction, there will be plans available somewhere!

Flash the lamps on using F0. Most RTR diesel models have working white and red lamps installed these days.

Ahem.... does your river run white?

The hook will be barely visible in OO scale, as this rather nice photo on the Didcot Railway Centre website shows. I'd probably use a loop of fuse wire and superglue.

Blimey, that takes me back... It wented! Where did it went? Reminds me of a conversation between Bluebottle and Eccles! Looking forward to Tony learning to speak 1337 on his new phone (!)

I have not posted on this thread before, but sought it out owing to the same issue as a seemingly large number of other users. Using iPad, iOS, Safari. My concern is not the pop-up ads per se, I realise the commercial imperatives behind these. The big problem for me is that some of these adverts are unnecessarily energy/data hungry and/or are placed inappropriately, so they compromise site functionality. This is not just an RMWeb problem, it occurs elsewhere on ad-heavy sites, but it does become self-defeating when users start accessing a website less often, or click away because the advertising has overwhelmed the website’s core content and functionality to the point of impracticality. Ads - OK if you must. Dysfunctional and irritating website - I click out. You guys have worked bl**dy hard to make this forum hugely successful, it has become an everyday read for me. But these latest ads are wounding the core product because of how they are being applied... can a sensible balance be restored, please? Thanks in anticipation.

I have seen 53 RTR coaches being hauled by a single locomotive around a small club layout, during one of those ‘I wonder if...’ moments. It could have pulled more, but the rear coach was only a few inches ahead of the front buffers and we couldn’t fit any more in! The train showed no tendency to derail on the curves, despite ascribing a full circuit, the trick was to use modern RTR coaches with low rolling resistance. The locomotive concerned was an unmodified 1980’s Hornby Flying Scotsman with a ringfield tender drive and traction tyres. I accept that this is a rather different proposition to hauling kit-built coaches, but we’re discussing the physics here and it illustrates a point.

I’m imagining all those droppers from a ceiling mounted bus, down to every point and signal... think it might get a bit messy?

That’s only because there’s so much other wiring under your layouts, you’d never find the bus!

*Cough* years ago, I faced a similar situation with my Swiss metre gauge layout, when I wanted to model one of the characteristic box girder bridges on the Montreux Oberland Bahn in HO scale. This is the bridge I wanted to model: The solution I eventually adopted was to kit-bash the bridge kit made by Roco, Cat. No. 40080. The kit structure would result in something far too heavyweight looking for this bridge, but I found the plastic soft enough to carve easily, and it was straightforward to add additional cross bracing using plastruct section, resulting in an appropriately lighter-weight looking bridge. It required quite a heavy butchering, including reducing the width of the decking to accommodate 12mm gauge track, rather then the intended 16.5mm. It was time-consuming work but I was pleased with the end result. For the intervening years the completed structure has sat in a box, still waiting for the layout to be built... Your post got me thinking, so I dug the bridge out of its box for an airing, and took a few pictures: the green sections are original unmodified kit parts for comparison, so you can see how it was cut down.

Which makes me think - is St Enodoc's Church going to feature on the layout at all? Maybe inside that curve to Wheal Veronica...

Not forgetting...

Re: mask wearing and social distancing etc., remember that government policy is determined by the management of risk at the national level... which mostly seems to be driven by the NHS’s ability to cope with the level of hospitalisations and the burden on ICU beds. In pre-Covid years, there were up to 40,000 deaths from influenza in the UK alone, mostly the elderly and vulnerable, yet nobody demanded that we should all be wearing masks back then. The same mindset is being adopted with Covid, now that the majority of us are double-vaccinated. Though this does take some getting used to, after the scary messages put out during the earlier lockdowns. The management of risk at the national level is very different to assessing our individual risk. With the easing of restrictions, we now each have to decide how comfortable we are about socialising, and what precautions we take, depending upon our individual appetite for risk-taking. So of course, opinions will vary. I have yet to attend an exhibition since lockdown because there hasn’t been one locally yet, but have been regularly attending club days since early July. Some members wear masks, most now don’t because most of us wear glasses... we ensure the clubroom is ventilated and people’s confidence has been growing as the weeks have passed without incident. Then last Friday, several of us got ‘pinged’ by the NHS app, a couple of days after club night. We have fortunately all since tested negative, so the source appears to be outside the club membership (there is also a cafe on-site that we use intermittently) but it is a timely reminder that the risk is still very much out there, to be individually managed. We should enjoy the freedom that we now have, albeit responsibly. And take note of the news item this morning that heralds the possible return of some national restrictions this Autumn, as hospitalisations are rising again.

For information and possible interest to mid-Cornwall readers... Modelmaster Jackson Evans have a 50% sale on this weekend. Ends tomorrow, Tuesday.

My understanding is: Unfitted = grey Fitted = bauxite with red pipe upstand Piped = bauxite with white pipe upstand. Piped brake vans could be used to apply the brakes on their trains, but the van itself was not fitted with vacuum brakes. Hence the bauxite colour is determined by functionality rather than fitting. I don’t have access to primary reference sources though, or knowledge of any regional variations, so may stand corrected.

The Bachmann Toad is really easy to add working lamps to, which I find adds to the pleasure. I use the DCC Concepts red lamps. The underside is uncluttered for installing pick-ups, and the body is easily removed for installing the lamp, running the wires unobtrusively, and hiding a 50K ohm resistor and diode inside:

You also only need four rail breaks, not six. The two on the LHS of your diagram can be dispensed with.

In the business world, it’s called diversification. You used to raise money for CRUK by loco-doctoring at exhibitions. Now, instead you’re raising money for CRUK and helping widows, by utilising those same loco-doctoring skills but adapted to the current environment. It’s probably not as enjoyable without the social aspect of exhibitions, but it sounds to be at least as effective in terms of fund raising, it helps those families as well, gives those collections another lease of life, and benefits those purchasing said items. 10/10, Sir!

The three Steve’s in our club will be miffed that they haven’t made it onto the list! Out of our twenty club members, only four individuals have names that appear on this list. That either rubbishes the author’s research, or marks us out as a peculiar club. Both are likely to be true...

Sod’s law says that, when you start operating the Barry slip in earnest, you’ll suddenly realise that the missing straight road would actually be useful in some situations!

But... do these places exist on your mid-Cornwall lines? The Par van at least should be rebadged as Porthmellyn Road!

I’ll have to remember that if ever I buy anything off him...